Vaccination is the most effective course of action to prevent influenza. About 150 million doses of influenza vaccines were distributed for the 2015-2016 season in the USA alone according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccine dosage is calculated based on the concentration of hemagglutinin (HA), the main surface glycoprotein expressed by influenza which varies from strain t...

Cross-species comparison of great ape gesturing has so far been limited to the physical form of gestures in the repertoire, without questioning whether gestures share the same meanings. Researchers have recently catalogued the meanings of chimpanzee gestures, but little is known about the gesture meanings of our other closest living relative, the bonobo. The bonobo gestural repertoire overlaps ...

While bonobos and chimpanzees are both genetically and behaviorally very similar, they also differ in significant ways. Bonobos are more cautious and socially tolerant while chimpanzees are more dependent on extractive foraging, which requires tools. The similarities suggest the two species should be cognitively similar while the behavioral differences predict where the two species should diffe...

Humans are believed to have evolved a unique motivation to participate in joint activities that first develops during infancy and supports the development of shared intentionality. We conducted five experiments with bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) (Total n = 119) to assess their motivation to spontaneously participate in joint activities with a conspecific or a human. W...

Comparisons between chimpanzees and humans have led to the hypothesis that only humans voluntarily share their own food with others. However, it is hard to draw conclusions because the food-sharing preferences of our more tolerant relative, the bonobo (Pan paniscus), have never been studied experimentally. We gave unrelated bonobos the choice of either monopolizing food or actively sharing: we ...

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membranes with nano-porous surface and high hydrophilicity were fabricated by addition of polyoxyethylene (40) nonylphenyl ether (IGEPAL) as an additive in the casting solution. The membranes were prepared from PAN/IGEPAL/1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) via phase inversion induced by immersion precipitation technique. Pure water was used as coagulation medium. The effects o...

Humans closely monitor others' cooperative relationships [1, 2]. Children and adults willingly incur costs to reward helpers and punish non-helpers-even as bystanders [3-5]. Already by 3 months, infants favor individuals that they observe helping others [6-8]. This early-emerging prosocial preference may be a derived motivation that accounts for many human forms of cooperation that occur beyond...

Infants' early gaze alternations are one of their first steps towards a sophisticated understanding of the social world. This ability, to gaze alternate between an object of interest and another individual also attending to that object, has been considered foundational to the development of many complex social-cognitive abilities, such as theory of mind and language. However, to understand the ...

Although both bonobos and chimpanzees are male-philopatric species, outcomes of male-male reproductive competition seem to be more closely associated with mating success in chimpanzees. This suggests that the extent of male reproductive skew is lower in bonobos. In addition, between-group male-male reproductive competition is more lethal in chimpanzees. This suggests that between-group differen...